TEHRAN, Jan 28 -The plunge of cryptocurrencies has forced investors to seek other safe havens in traditional commodities, like precious metals. Investing analysts have revealed that many are turning to gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -The world's most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin, has been trading below $4,000 for nearly three weeks. Other major digital currencies, including Ethereum and Ripple (XRP) have also fallen sharply since the beginning of the year.

The crypto market selloff has changed the investment climate, CEO of Van Eck Associates told the ETF Edge program. While back in 2017, when bitcoin reached its historic peak above $20,000, demand was “a little bit” shifted away from gold, now investors are reportedly switching back.

“Interestingly, we just polled 4,000 bitcoin investors and their number one investment for 2019 is actually gold. So gold lost to bitcoin and now it’s going the other way,” Jan Van Eck said.

The cryptocurrencies’ falling liquidity raises serious doubts of their ability to serve as a store of value, while the precious metal has already proven itself, the founder and chief investment officer of Seymour Asset Management believes.

“Not only have we lost all liquidity on the underlying [commodity] but truly outside of the existential blockchain argument, it’s been very difficult to argue store of value which is really what we started hearing about,” Tim Seymour said on Wednesday. “Gold is a store of value and there’s no disputing that.”